490 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR ch. xxviii 



skins must pass through the summer's heat of the 

 plains of India. 



Most Kashmiri shikaris know how a skin should be 

 taken off, but it is nevertheless well to supervise the 

 operation. Head skins are usually turned inside out, 

 and body skins stretched with nails. Powdered alum, 

 well rubbed in, is the best preservative I know of, but 

 care should be taken that the skins are dried in the 

 shade. The shikari will want to put them into the sun, 

 and will do so unless prevented. It is well to paint the 

 head skins with arsenical soap all round the lips, eyes, 

 nose, and ears, and wherever there are any hollows. 

 One of the hardest things, I always found, was to get the 

 meat and fat all cleaned off properly without cutting the 

 skin. No shikari that I have ever seen will do this of 

 his own accord. It is a troublesome operation at the 

 best of times, and requires much patience and some 

 dexterity. It is a good plan to take, for pegging out 

 skins, a lot of nails about 4 inches long, each with a 

 hole through the head, so that they can be kept together 

 strung on a piece of wire. This helps to prevent loss. 

 Commercial naphthaline, procurable at any druggists in 

 Calcutta, or at the Stores in Bombay, is about the best 

 thing to put with skins when packed to send home. No 

 insect will go near it. Turpentine is admirable for 

 pouring into the hollows of horns. 



